# Betfair API library? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [May 3, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/betfair-api-library/59329 "2006-05-03T18:57:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/90db22/32.png) [@prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prichard)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/betfair-api-library/59329/1 "2006-05-03T18:57:23Z")
Hi all, For those of you in jurisdictions where access to gambling sites is illegal, you may want to skip this message/thread. Betfair is the world’s leading betting exchange site at http:// [www.betfair.com](http://www.betfair.com) and within the UK has shaken up the bookmaking industry in interesting ways. If you don’t know what exchange betting is, google for it as it’s too big a topic to discuss here. Some years ago they introduced an API service at http:// [api.betfair.com](http://api.betfair.com) which was initially launched at the rather steep price of £100/month for ‘read’ access to market data and £200/month for access to be able to place bets. I originally was on the beta program but didn’t get very far in developing a library before these charges came in. Most implementations I’ve seen have been in .NET and/ or are commercially available only for very high fees. There is now a free version of the API which limits the number of transactions that can be conducted per minute. As a result, development of a library is now not going to be a financially prohibitive exercise. Since the beta program ended, I’ve discovered Ruby and am thinking it might be worth giving this another go. I was wondering if anybody had been working on developing a library and associated suite of tools for the API in Ruby, or if anybody would be interested on working on it with me? A WSDL file is available, but last time I tried to auto-generate any proxy classes it broke in interesting ways, and as I’m not too familiar with Web Service client development in Ruby, I was wondering if anybody would like to get involved? The project I have in mind is to develop a suite of tools to be released as open source (MIT) that would allow users to integrate Betfair market data into their own projects, develop bots in Ruby and for me to better understand web services using one of the most complicated API services available on the Internet today. If other exchange sites develop similar API products (or they’re out there already and I’m not aware of them), it might be possible to extend this project so that arbitration and multiple-site market management scripts can be easily produced. Anybody else interested? If so, I’ll get something set up on [Rubyforge.org](http://Rubyforge.org) in the near future and we’ll get rolling. ---
**Author:** ![prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/90db22/32.png) [@prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prichard)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 9:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/betfair-api-library/59329/2 "2006-05-05T21:03:07Z")
Hi Paul, I’m writing an application that uses the betfair api for a friend of mine. As part of this i’ve put together a very simple library to talk to their SOAP api. If you’re interested in using this i’d be happy to contribute it. At the moment it only directly supports the read-only services as those are the ones I need, but the wsdl classes and session handling are taken care of, which is certainly what took up the most time. I’ll have to ask if I can open-source it first, but I don’t imagine that will be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/90db22/32.png) [@prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prichard)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/betfair-api-library/59329/3 "2006-05-05T22:29:58Z")
Paul, this sounds like a great idea for a Summer of Code project. If you agree, it would be great if you could email me and we could try to work out a plan of sorts. I’d have to submit my application (with a proposal) by Monday, so its somewhat time sensitive. Thanks, –Tyler P. Anybody else interested? If so, I’ll get something set up on ---
**Author:** ![prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/90db22/32.png) [@prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prichard)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 7:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/betfair-api-library/59329/4 "2006-05-06T07:16:48Z")
I am a Ruby Summer of Code mentor and I doubt we mentors would approve of a project like this (I won’t at least.) Maybe I’m being puritan or something, but I imagine there are other more pressing projects than interfacing Ruby with a betting site. Just to let you know… Ryan ---
**Author:** ![prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/90db22/32.png) [@prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prichard)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 9:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/betfair-api-library/59329/5 "2006-05-06T09:14:41Z")
Hmmm… chances are you are right, although I don’t know that the choice of open source projects has even been about “pressing need.” Go look at the list of CMS’s on wikipedia and you’ll see what I mean. That being said, I do respect your opinion and am glad you posted it because I would like to at least have a chance of getting approved, so I think I’ll drop the idea as an SOC project. Ciao, –Tyler ---
**Author:** ![prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/90db22/32.png) [@prichard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/prichard)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 11:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/betfair-api-library/59329/6 "2006-05-08T11:17:38Z")
On 5 May 2006, at 20:00, Nick Dainty wrote: > I’m writing an application that uses the betfair api for a friend of > mine. As part of this i’ve put together a very simple library to talk > to their SOAP api. If you’re interested in using this i’d be happy to > contribute it. At the moment it only directly supports the read-only > services as those are the ones I need, but the wsdl classes and > session handling are taken care of, which is certainly what took up > the most time. I’d certainly be interested in seeing that if possible Nick - adding the write functions should be relatively trivial now you’ve got the read functions handled. To be honest, one project I’m thinking of would only need the read functions, so anything you’ve got would be useful. I’m as interested in seeing some example code for an API I’m familiar with to understand SOAP and Ruby better, as I am having some functional code to be honest. > I’ll have to ask if I can open-source it first, but I don’t imagine > that will be a problem. If you could, that would be great.